Archives: Seminar

It’s Time to Reboot!

  Presented by Riaz Yusuff • Chief Information Officer, OHR, University of Minnesota

The changing landscape in IT warrants a different approach on a number of issues. The IT landscape was already changing rapidly pre-COVID-19. But the pandemic has necessitated the need for flexible & robust systems in place, secure remote access to systems, creative policies and procedures in recruiting & retaining IT talent, right implementation methodology between waterfall, agile and dev-ops, and changes in many other aspects in IT. This keynote will leave you with several thought-provoking ideas and questions for consideration to 10X the output of your IT teams.

Riaz Yusuff is a Chief Information Officer for the Office of Human Resources at the University of Minnesota. He has 20 years of experience in Information Technology starting from a developer and later in various leadership roles. Riaz specializes in optimizing IT spend for large organizations.

Riaz regularly presents various topics on IT leadership at conferences, and he has been featured on several leadership panels. Riaz has earned his MBA and MS IT degrees, and has earned several certifications including PMP. His book “The 6-Foot Distance in IT: How to Cope with Fast Changing IT Landscape Post Pandemic. A Guide for Senior IT Leaders” is coming to Amazon this spring.

How to Manage and Simplify Your IT While Lowering Your TCO for Government

  Presented by Nutanix

As Government leaders pivot to meet the unique challenges of an extraordinary 2020, a new normal is emerging: organizations are increasingly tasking IT to find and deliver rapid new business value through increased efficiency, enhanced automation, accelerated time to market, sharp innovation, and rock-solid cost savings.

For these organizations, it’s time to reach a new economic advantage. Learn how you can save your valuable budget, time, and manpower and redistribute resources toward more high-value initiatives. After all, your infrastructure should deliver returns—not add complexity and costs over time.

What Does the Future Hold for Teleworking?

  Presented by INTERFACE Advisory Council

With the current pandemic, companies have mobilized to enable employees to work from home. IT departments took on this task in March of 2020. Many security and compliance challenges have been dealt with, but some remain.

Join the INTERFACE- Advisory Council for a look at what lies ahead with remote working. How are you adjusting your security procedures? Do you know if your end-users will return to the office? The dreaded elephant in the room will be addressed as well – BUDGETS! What do you need? What is expected of your IT staff? You will get tips on what has worked and what still is a challenge in keeping your users active and ensuring your business is fully operational.

Also, we will address long term items when it comes to in person working for different industries. How much of a shift in business will we see? We will discuss how IT departments will be involved in decision making and execution of policies.


Panelists:

Raul Carolus • Sr. System Programmer, Mason City Clinic
Nathan Pralle • Manager of Information Technology, Cambrex
Gene Schaff • Director of Information Technology, Tiller Corporation
John Schroeder • Director of IT Governance, Risk, and Compliance, Integrated DNA Technologies

Easiest Catch: Don’t Be Another Fish in the Dark ‘Net

  Presented by INTERFACE Advisory Council

You’ve read the headlines. Unfortunately, the question now is not if your information is going to be accessed or stolen, but when. To inform the attendees of current developments in the digital underground as well as provide realistic advice for cyber protection, Mark Lanterman will be discussing recent high-profile cybercrime events, including website breaches impacting a variety of organizations and sectors. Mark will discuss particularly dangerous types of threats that might affect individuals involving the Dark Web, the Internet of Things, phishing, and Wi-Fi attacks.

Presented by: Mark Lanterman • Chief Technology Officer, Computer Forensic Services

2021 State of Malware

  Presented by Malwarebytes

Over the past year, the tools and tactics of cybercrime and cybersecurity adapted against a backdrop of enormous changes to our lives and businesses.

Join us to learn how cybercrime evolved in 2020 and identify ways to safeguard your organization against what’s out there.

We’ll explore:

  • Top threats for businesses and consumers
  • Emerging cybercrime trends and tactics
  • Solutions you can employ to thwart future attacks

Automating the Analyst

  Presented by Darktrace

Alongside the rise of today’s dynamic workforce, the speed and scale of sophisticated cyber-attacks are rapidly increasing. As the cybersecurity industry continues to endure an ongoing skills shortage, over-worked and under-resourced teams urgently need augmentation in order to defend against evolving, sophisticated threats.

For over three years, Darktrace experts have been working to meet this challenge, investigating whether they could teach AI to think like a cybersecurity analyst. It takes subtle, nuanced skills and implicit knowledge for an analyst to detect genuinely threatening activity, and the creation of the world-first Cyber AI Analyst took analyzing over one hundred of the world’s top threat analysts and complex machine learning algorithms. Join Darktrace as we discuss the Cyber AI Analyst in action.

Threat Hunting 101

  Presented by CrowdStrike

Threats can come at you anytime and from any number of sources. In this session, Bradley Grandorff, Crowdstrike Systems Engineer, takes us through free form search and how he solved a real world incident that forced a customer to shut down their IT systems. Bradley will go in-depth on threat hunting techniques and help teach you what you need to be aware of. Learn tips from an expert with several decades of experience in information security working for companies such as Cisco, Splunk, and now Crowdstrike.

First Line of Defense in Assessing your Organizations Cybersecurity Risks

  Presented by Fortinet

Assessing the resilience of your network can dramatically improve your ability to fend off prospective breaches. New applications and services introduce new avenues of attack. Without knowing the potential weaknesses within your network, you cannot successfully defend it.

Join us to hear about:

  • how assessments give you the visibility you need to make more informed, data-driven decisions
  • how you can prioritize strategic initiatives and obtain budgeting more easily by running assessments
  • how certain verticals (education, healthcare, et al.) can benefit from understanding their specific threat landscapes and common industry-wide threats.

During this session we will also cover:

  • a firsthand demonstration on how data is collected and processed, and logs are analyzed from your network during an assessment
  • contents of a sample findings report and how recommendations can help prioritize your security strategy

Talent by Design: The Cybersecurity Workforce Lifecycle and Challenge

  Presented by Cloud Security Alliance North Texas Chapter

Cloud security and the evolving cybersecurity technologies require different skill sets than 15 years ago. Many companies and leaders talk about the talent shortage, skills gap, and necessity for the right kind of training for the right kind of talent.

People who are earning cross-certifications that combine skills – such as the Certified Cloud Security Professional (CCSP) co-created by (ISC)² and Cloud Security Alliance – are seeing a big boost in pay. If you have those skills, you’re in a good position to command those higher salaries.

But what steps can we as the industry take to bring our community closer together to build the foundation early and have a starting point for new entrants – whether just out of college, coming out of a specialized program, out of the military, etc.

During this session, dynamic experts will share ideas on how we can leverage all the education, mentorship programs, and training and leadership skills-based workshops available to better contribute to the workforce in an evolving cybersecurity landscape.